The text below is taken from the 1866 edition of Self-Help published by John Murray, London.
For a discussion of his contribution see Samuel Smiles and self help
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“The worth of a State, in the long run, is the worth of the individuals
composing it.”— J. S. Mill.
“We put too much faith in systems, and look too little to men.”— B.
Disraeli.
“Heaven helps those who help themselves” is a well-tried maxim, embodying in
a small compass the results of vast human experience. The spirit of self-help is
the root of all genuine growth in the individual; and, exhibited in the lives of
many, it constitutes the true source of national vigour and strength. Help from
without is often enfeebling in its effects, but help from within invariably
invigorates. Whatever is done for men or classes, to a certain extent
takes away the stimulus and necessity of doing for themselves; and where men are
subjected to over-guidance and over-government, the inevitable tendency is to
render them comparatively helpless.
Even the best institutions can give a man no active help. Perhaps the most they
can do is, to leave him free to develop himself and improve his
individual condition. But in all times men have been prone to believe that their
happiness and well-being were to be secured by means of institutions rather than
by their own conduct. Hence the value of legislation as an agent in human
advancement has usually been much over-estimated. To constitute the millionth
part of a Legislature, by voting for one or two men once in three or five years,
however conscientiously this duty may be performed, can exercise but little
active influence upon any man’s life and character. Moreover, it is every day
becoming more clearly understood, that the function of Government is negative
and restrictive, rather than positive and active; being resolvable principally
into protection—protection of life, liberty, and property. Laws, wisely
administered, will secure men in the enjoyment of the fruits of their labour,
whether of mind or body, at a comparatively small personal sacrifice; but no
laws, however stringent, can make the idle industrious, the thriftless
provident, or the drunken sober. Such reforms can only be effected by means of
individual action, economy, and self-denial; by better habits, rather than by
greater rights.
The Government of a nation itself is usually found to be but the reflex of the
individuals composing it. The Government that is ahead of the people will
inevitably be dragged down to their level, as the Government that is behind them
will in the long run be dragged up. In the order of nature, the collective
character of a nation will as surely find its befitting results in its law and
government, as water finds its own level. The noble people will be nobly ruled,
and the ignorant and corrupt ignobly. Indeed all experience serves to prove that
the worth and strength of a State depend far less upon the form of its
institutions than upon the character of its men. For the nation is only an
aggregate of individual conditions, and civilization itself is but a question of
the personal improvement of the men, women, and children of whom society is
composed.
National progress is the sum of individual industry, energy, and uprightness, as
national decay is of individual idleness, selfishness, and vice. What we are
accustomed to decry as great social evils, will, for the most part, be found to
be but the outgrowth of man’s own perverted life; and though we may endeavour to
cut them down and extirpate them by means of Law, they will only spring up again
with fresh luxuriance in some other form, unless the conditions of personal life
and character are radically improved. If this view be correct, then it follows
that the highest patriotism and philanthropy consist, not so much in altering
laws and modifying institutions, as in helping and stimulating men to elevate
and improve themselves by their own free and independent individual action.
It may be of comparatively little consequence how a man is governed from
without, whilst everything depends upon how he governs himself from within. The
greatest slave is not he who is ruled by a despot, great though that evil be,
but he who is the thrall of his own moral ignorance, selfishness, and vice.
Nations who are thus enslaved at heart cannot be freed by any mere changes of
masters or of institutions; and so long as the fatal delusion prevails, that
liberty solely depends upon and consists in government, so long will such
changes, no matter at what cost they may be effected, have as little practical
and lasting result as the shifting of the figures in a phantasmagoria. The solid
foundations of liberty must rest upon individual character; which is also the
only sure guarantee for social security and national progress. John Stuart Mill
truly observes that “even despotism does not produce its worst effects so long
as individuality exists under it; and whatever crushes individuality is
despotism, by whatever name it be called.”
Old fallacies as to human progress are constantly turning up. Some call for
Caesars, others for Nationalities, and others for Acts of Parliament. We are to
wait for Caesars, and when they are found, “happy the people who recognise and
follow them.” (1) This doctrine shortly means, everything for
the people, nothing by them,—a doctrine which, if taken as a guide, must, by
destroying the free conscience of a community, speedily prepare the way for any
form of despotism. Caesarism is human idolatry in its worst form—a worship of
mere power, as degrading in its effects as the worship of mere wealth would be.
A far healthier doctrine to inculcate among the nations would be that of
Self-Help; and so soon as it is thoroughly understood and carried into action,
Caesarism will be no more. The two principles are directly antagonistic; and
what Victor Hugo said of the Pen and the Sword alike applies to them, “Ceci
tuera cela.” [This will kill that.]
The power of Nationalities and Acts of Parliament is also a prevalent
superstition. What William Dargan, one of Ireland’s truest patriots, said at the
closing of the first Dublin Industrial Exhibition, may well be quoted now. “To
tell the truth,” he said, “I never heard the word independence mentioned that my
own country and my own fellow townsmen did not occur to my mind. I have heard a
great deal about the independence that we were to get from this, that, and the
other place, and of the great expectations we were to have from persons from
other countries coming amongst us. Whilst I value as much as any man the great
advantages that must result to us from that intercourse, I have always been
deeply impressed with the feeling that our industrial independence is dependent
upon ourselves. I believe that with simple industry and careful exactness in the
utilization of our energies, we never had a fairer chance nor a brighter
prospect than the present. We have made a step, but perseverance is the great
agent of success; and if we but go on zealously, I believe in my conscience that
in a short period we shall arrive at a position of equal comfort, of equal
happiness, and of equal independence, with that of any other people.”
All nations have been made what they are by the thinking and the working of many
generations of men. Patient and persevering labourers in all ranks and
conditions of life, cultivators of the soil and explorers of the mine, inventors
and discoverers, manufacturers, mechanics and artisans, poets, philosophers, and
politicians, all have contributed towards the grand result, one generation
building upon another’s labours, and carrying them forward to still higher
stages. This constant succession of noble workers—the artisans of
civilisation—has served to create order out of chaos in industry, science, and
art; and the living race has thus, in the course of nature, become the inheritor
of the rich estate provided by the skill and industry of our forefathers, which
is placed in our hands to cultivate, and to hand down, not only unimpaired but
improved, to our successors.
The spirit of self-help, as exhibited in the energetic action of individuals,
has in all times been a marked feature in the English character, and furnishes
the true measure of our power as a nation. Rising above the heads of the mass,
there were always to be found a series of individuals distinguished beyond
others, who commanded the public homage. But our progress has also been owing to
multitudes of smaller and less known men. Though only the generals’ names may be
remembered in the history of any great campaign, it has been in a great measure
through the individual valour and heroism of the privates that victories have
been won. And life, too, is “a soldiers’ battle,”—men in the ranks having in all
times been amongst the greatest of workers. Many are the lives of men unwritten,
which have nevertheless as powerfully influenced civilisation and progress as
the more fortunate Great whose names are recorded in biography. Even the
humblest person, who sets before his fellows an example of industry, sobriety,
and upright honesty of purpose in life, has a present as well as a future
influence upon the well-being of his country; for his life and character pass
unconsciously into the lives of others, and propagate good example for all time
to come.
Daily experience shows that it is energetic individualism which produces the
most powerful effects upon the life and action of others, and really constitutes
the best practical education. Schools, academies, and colleges, give but the
merest beginnings of culture in comparison with it. Far more influential is the
life-education daily given in our homes, in the streets, behind counters, in
workshops, at the loom and the plough, in counting-houses and manufactories, and
in the busy haunts of men. This is that finishing instruction as members of
society, which Schiller designated “the education of the human race,” consisting
in action, conduct, self-culture, self-control,—all that tends to discipline a
man truly, and fit him for the proper performance of the duties and business of
life,—a kind of education not to be learnt from books, or acquired by any amount
of mere literary training. With his usual weight of words Bacon observes, that
“Studies teach not their own use; but that is a wisdom without them, and above
them, won by observation;” a remark that holds true of actual life, as well as
of the cultivation of the intellect itself. For all experience serves to
illustrate and enforce the lesson, that a man perfects himself by work more than
by reading,—that it is life rather than literature, action rather than study,
and character rather than biography, which tend perpetually to renovate mankind.
Biographies of great, but especially of good men, are nevertheless most
instructive and useful, as helps, guides, and incentives to others. Some of the
best are almost equivalent to gospels—teaching high living, high thinking, and
energetic action for their own and the world’s good. The valuable examples which
they furnish of the power of self-help, of patient purpose, resolute working,
and steadfast integrity, issuing in the formation of truly noble and manly
character, exhibit in language not to be misunderstood, what it is in the power
of each to accomplish for himself; and eloquently illustrate the efficacy of
self-respect and self-reliance in enabling men of even the humblest rank to work
out for themselves an honourable competency and a solid reputation.
Great men of science, literature, and art—apostles of great thoughts and lords
of the great heart—have belonged to no exclusive class nor rank in life. They
have come alike from colleges, workshops, and farmhouses,—from the huts of poor
men and the mansions of the rich. Some of God’s greatest apostles have come from
“the ranks.” The poorest have sometimes taken the highest places; nor have
difficulties apparently the most insuperable proved obstacles in their way.
Those very difficulties, in many instances, would ever seem to have been their
best helpers, by evoking their powers of labour and endurance, and stimulating
into life faculties which might otherwise have lain dormant. The instances of
obstacles thus surmounted, and of triumphs thus achieved, are indeed so
numerous, as almost to justify the proverb that “with Will one can do anything.”
Take, for instance, the remarkable fact, that from the barber’s shop came Jeremy
Taylor, the most poetical of divines; Sir Richard Arkwright, the inventor of the
spinning-jenny and founder of the cotton manufacture; Lord Tenterden, one of the
most distinguished of Lord Chief Justices; and Turner, the greatest among
landscape painters.
No one knows to a certainty what Shakespeare was; but it is unquestionable that
he sprang from a humble rank. His father was a butcher and grazier; and
Shakespeare himself is supposed to have been in early life a woolcomber; whilst
others aver that he was an usher in a school and afterwards a scrivener’s clerk.
He truly seems to have been “not one, but all mankind’s epitome.” For such is
the accuracy of his sea phrases that a naval writer alleges that he must have
been a sailor; whilst a clergyman infers, from internal evidence in his
writings, that he was probably a parson’s clerk; and a distinguished judge of
horse-flesh insists that he must have been a horse-dealer. Shakespeare was
certainly an actor, and in the course of his life “played many parts,” gathering
his wonderful stores of knowledge from a wide field of experience and
observation. In any event, he must have been a close student and a hard worker;
and to this day his writings continue to exercise a powerful influence on the
formation of English character.
The common class of day labourers has given us Brindley the engineer, Cook the
navigator, and Burns the poet. Masons and bricklayers can boast of Ben Jonson,
who worked at the building of Lincoln’s Inn, with a trowel in his hand and a
book in his pocket, Edwards and Telford the engineers, Hugh Miller the
geologist, and Allan Cunningham the writer and sculptor; whilst among
distinguished carpenters we find the names of Inigo Jones the architect,
Harrison the chronometer-maker, John Hunter the physiologist, Romney and Opie
the painters, Professor Lee the Orientalist, and John Gibson the sculptor.
From the weaver class have sprung Simson the mathematician, Bacon the sculptor,
the two Milners, Adam Walker, John Foster, Wilson the ornithologist, Dr.
Livingstone the missionary traveller, and Tannahill the poet. Shoemakers have
given us Sir Cloudesley Shovel the great Admiral, Sturgeon the electrician,
Samuel Drew the essayist, Gifford the editor of the ‘Quarterly Review,’
Bloomfield the poet, and William Carey the missionary; whilst Morrison, another
laborious missionary, was a maker of shoe-lasts. Within the last few years, a
profound naturalist has been discovered in the person of a shoemaker at Banff,
named Thomas Edwards, who, while maintaining himself by his trade, has devoted
his leisure to the study of natural science in all its branches, his researches
in connexion with the smaller crustaceae having been rewarded by the discovery
of a new species, to which the name of “Praniza Edwardsii” has been given by
naturalists.
Nor have tailors been undistinguished. John Stow, the historian, worked at the
trade during some part of his life. Jackson, the painter, made clothes until he
reached manhood. The brave Sir John Hawkswood, who so greatly distinguished
himself at Poictiers, and was knighted by Edward III. for his valour, was in
early life apprenticed to a London tailor. Admiral Hobson, who broke the boom at
Vigo in 1702, belonged to the same calling. He was working as a tailor’s
apprentice near Bonchurch, in the Isle of Wight, when the news flew through the
village that a squadron of men-of-war was sailing off the island. He sprang from
the shopboard, and ran down with his comrades to the beach, to gaze upon the
glorious sight. The boy was suddenly inflamed with the ambition to be a sailor;
and springing into a boat, he rowed off to the squadron, gained the admiral’s
ship, and was accepted as a volunteer. Years after, he returned to his native
village full of honours, and dined off bacon and eggs in the cottage where he
had worked as an apprentice. But the greatest tailor of all is unquestionably
Andrew Johnson, the present President of the United States—a man of
extraordinary force of character and vigour of intellect. In his great speech at
Washington, when describing himself as having begun his political career as an
alderman, and run through all the branches of the legislature, a voice in the
crowd cried, “From a tailor up.” It was characteristic of Johnson to take the
intended sarcasm in good part, and even to turn it to account. “Some gentleman
says I have been a tailor. That does not disconcert me in the least; for when I
was a tailor I had the reputation of being a good one, and making close fits; I
was always punctual with my customers, and always did good work.”
Cardinal Wolsey, De Foe, Akenside, and Kirke White were the sons of butchers;
Bunyan was a tinker, and Joseph Lancaster a basket-maker. Among the great names
identified with the invention of the steam-engine are those of Newcomen, Watt,
and Stephenson; the first a blacksmith, the second a maker of mathematical
instruments, and the third an engine-fireman. Huntingdon the preacher was
originally a coalheaver, and Bewick, the father of wood-engraving, a coalminer.
Dodsley was a footman, and Holcroft a groom. Baffin the navigator began his
seafaring career as a man before the mast, and Sir Cloudesley Shovel as a
cabin-boy. Herschel played the oboe in a military band. Chantrey was a
journeyman carver, Etty a journeyman printer, and Sir Thomas Lawrence the son of
a tavern-keeper. Michael Faraday, the son of a blacksmith, was in early life
apprenticed to a bookbinder, and worked at that trade until he reached his
twenty-second year: he now occupies the very first rank as a philosopher,
excelling even his master, Sir Humphry Davy, in the art of lucidly expounding
the most difficult and abstruse points in natural science.
Among those who have given the greatest impulse to the sublime science of
astronomy, we find Copernicus, the son of a Polish baker; Kepler, the son of a
German public-house keeper, and himself the “garçon de cabaret;” d’Alembert, a
foundling picked up one winter’s night on the steps of the church of St. Jean le
Rond at Paris, and brought up by the wife of a glazier; and Newton and Laplace,
the one the son of a small freeholder near Grantham, the other the son of a poor
peasant of Beaumont-en-Auge, near Honfleur. Notwithstanding their comparatively
adverse circumstances in early life, these distinguished men achieved a solid
and enduring reputation by the exercise of their genius, which all the wealth in
the world could not have purchased. The very possession of wealth might indeed
have proved an obstacle greater even than the humble means to which they were
born. The father of Lagrange, the astronomer and mathematician, held the office
of Treasurer of War at Turin; but having ruined himself by speculations, his
family were reduced to comparative poverty. To this circumstance Lagrange was in
after life accustomed partly to attribute his own fame and happiness. “Had I
been rich,” said he, “I should probably not have become a mathematician.”
The sons of clergymen and ministers of religion generally, have particularly
distinguished themselves in our country’s history. Amongst them we find the
names of Drake and Nelson, celebrated in naval heroism; of Wollaston, Young,
Playfair, and Bell, in science; of Wren, Reynolds, Wilson, and Wilkie, in art;
of Thurlow and Campbell, in law; and of Addison, Thomson, Goldsmith, Coleridge,
and Tennyson, in literature. Lord Hardinge, Colonel Edwardes, and Major Hodson,
so honourably known in Indian warfare, were also the sons of clergymen. Indeed,
the empire of England in India was won and held chiefly by men of the middle
class—such as Clive, Warren Hastings, and their successors—men for the most part
bred in factories and trained to habits of business.
Among the sons of attorneys we find Edmund Burke, Smeaton the engineer, Scott
and Wordsworth, and Lords Somers, Hardwick, and Dunning. Sir William Blackstone
was the posthumous son of a silk-mercer. Lord Gifford’s father was a grocer at
Dover; Lord Denman’s a physician; judge Talfourd’s a country brewer; and Lord
Chief Baron Pollock’s a celebrated saddler at Charing Cross. Layard, the
discoverer of the monuments of Nineveh, was an articled clerk in a London
solicitor’s office; and Sir William Armstrong, the inventor of hydraulic
machinery and of the Armstrong ordnance, was also trained to the law and
practised for some time as an attorney. Milton was the son of a London
scrivener, and Pope and Southey were the sons of linendrapers. Professor Wilson
was the son of a Paisley manufacturer, and Lord Macaulay of an African merchant.
Keats was a druggist, and Sir Humphry Davy a country apothecary’s apprentice.
Speaking of himself, Davy once said, “What I am I have made myself: I say this
without vanity, and in pure simplicity of heart.” Richard Owen, the Newton of
Natural History, began life as a midshipman, and did not enter upon the line of
scientific research in which he has since become so distinguished, until
comparatively late in life. He laid the foundations of his great knowledge while
occupied in cataloguing the magnificent museum accumulated by the industry of
John Hunter, a work which occupied him at the College of Surgeons during a
period of about ten years.
Foreign not less than English biography abounds in illustrations of men who have
glorified the lot of poverty by their labours and their genius. In Art we find
Claude, the son of a pastrycook; Geefs, of a baker; Leopold Robert, of a
watchmaker; and Haydn, of a wheelwright; whilst Daguerre was a scene-painter at
the Opera. The father of Gregory VII. was a carpenter; of Sextus V., a shepherd;
and of Adrian VI., a poor bargeman. When a boy, Adrian, unable to pay for a
light by which to study, was accustomed to prepare his lessons by the light of
the lamps in the streets and the church porches, exhibiting a degree of patience
and industry which were the certain forerunners of his future distinction. Of
like humble origin were Hauy, the mineralogist, who was the son of a weaver of
Saint-Just; Hautefeuille, the mechanician, of a baker at Orleans; Joseph
Fourier, the mathematician, of a tailor at Auxerre; Durand, the architect, of a
Paris shoemaker; and Gesner, the naturalist, of a skinner or worker in hides, at
Zurich. This last began his career under all the disadvantages attendant on
poverty, sickness, and domestic calamity; none of which, however, were
sufficient to damp his courage or hinder his progress. His life was indeed an
eminent illustration of the truth of the saying, that those who have most to do
and are willing to work, will find the most time. Pierre Ramus was another man
of like character. He was the son of poor parents in Picardy, and when a boy was
employed to tend sheep. But not liking the occupation he ran away to Paris.
After encountering much misery, he succeeded in entering the College of Navarre
as a servant. The situation, however, opened for him the road to learning, and
he shortly became one of the most distinguished men of his time.
The chemist Vauquelin was the son of a peasant of Saint-André-d’Herbetot, in the
Calvados. When a boy at school, though poorly clad, he was full of bright
intelligence; and the master, who taught him to read and write, when praising
him for his diligence, used to say, “Go on, my boy; work, study, Colin, and one
day you will go as well dressed as the parish churchwarden!” A country
apothecary who visited the school, admired the robust boy’s arms, and offered to
take him into his laboratory to pound his drugs, to which Vauquelin assented, in
the hope of being able to continue his lessons. But the apothecary would not
permit him to spend any part of his time in learning; and on ascertaining this,
the youth immediately determined to quit his service. He therefore left
Saint-André and took the road for Paris with his havresac on his back. Arrived
there, he searched for a place as apothecary’s boy, but could not find one. Worn
out by fatigue and destitution, Vauquelin fell ill, and in that state was taken
to the hospital, where he thought he should die. But better things were in store
for the poor boy. He recovered, and again proceeded in his search of employment,
which he at length found with an apothecary. Shortly after, he became known to
Fourcroy the eminent chemist, who was so pleased with the youth that he made him
his private secretary; and many years after, on the death of that great
philosopher, Vauquelin succeeded him as Professor of Chemistry. Finally, in
1829, the electors of the district of Calvados appointed him their
representative in the Chamber of Deputies, and he re-entered in triumph the
village which he had left so many years before, so poor and so obscure.
England has no parallel instances to show, of promotions from the ranks of the
army to the highest military offices; which have been so common in France since
the first Revolution. “La carrière ouverte aux talents” has there received many
striking illustrations, which would doubtless be matched among ourselves were
the road to promotion as open. Hoche, Humbert, and Pichegru, began their
respective careers as private soldiers. Hoche, while in the King’s army, was
accustomed to embroider waistcoats to enable him to earn money wherewith to
purchase books on military science. Humbert was a scapegrace when a youth; at
sixteen he ran away from home, and was by turns servant to a tradesman at Nancy,
a workman at Lyons, and a hawker of rabbit skins. In 1792, he enlisted as a
volunteer; and in a year he was general of brigade. Kleber, Lefèvre, Suchet,
Victor, Lannes, Soult, Massena, St. Cyr, D’Erlon, Murat, Augereau, Bessières,
and Ney, all rose from the ranks. In some cases promotion was rapid, in others
it was slow. Saint Cyr, the son of a tanner of Toul, began life as an actor,
after which he enlisted in the Chasseurs, and was promoted to a captaincy within
a year. Victor, Duc de Belluno, enlisted in the Artillery in 1781: during the
events preceding the Revolution he was discharged; but immediately on the
outbreak of war he re-enlisted, and in the course of a few months his
intrepidity and ability secured his promotion as Adjutant-Major and chief of
battalion. Murat, “le beau sabreur,” was the son of a village innkeeper in
Perigord, where he looked after the horses. He first enlisted in a regiment of
Chasseurs, from which he was dismissed for insubordination: but again enlisting,
he shortly rose to the rank of Colonel. Ney enlisted at eighteen in a hussar
regiment, and gradually advanced step by step: Kleber soon discovered his
merits, surnaming him “The Indefatigable,” and promoted him to be
Adjutant-General when only twenty-five. On the other hand, Soult
(2) was six years from the date of his enlistment before he reached the rank
of sergeant. But Soult’s advancement was rapid compared with that of Massena,
who served for fourteen years before he was made sergeant; and though he
afterwards rose successively, step by step, to the grades of Colonel, General of
Division, and Marshal, he declared that the post of sergeant was the step which
of all others had cost him the most labour to win. Similar promotions from the
ranks, in the French army, have continued down to our own day. Changarnier
entered the King’s bodyguard as a private in 1815. Marshal Bugeaud served four
years in the ranks, after which he was made an officer. Marshal Randon, the
present French Minister of War, began his military career as a drummer boy; and
in the portrait of him in the gallery at Versailles, his hand rests upon a
drum-head, the picture being thus painted at his own request. Instances such as
these inspire French soldiers with enthusiasm for their service, as each private
feels that he may possibly carry the baton of a marshal in his knapsack.
The instances of men, in this and other countries, who, by dint of persevering
application and energy, have raised themselves from the humblest ranks of
industry to eminent positions of usefulness and influence in society, are indeed
so numerous that they have long ceased to be regarded as exceptional. Looking at
some of the more remarkable, it might almost be said that early encounter with
difficulty and adverse circumstances was the necessary and indispensable
condition of success. The British House of Commons has always contained a
considerable number of such self-raised men—fitting representatives of the
industrial character of the people; and it is to the credit of our Legislature
that they have been welcomed and honoured there. When the late Joseph Brotherton,
member for Salford, in the course of the discussion on the Ten Hours Bill,
detailed with true pathos the hardships and fatigues to which he had been
subjected when working as a factory boy in a cotton mill, and described the
resolution which he had then formed, that if ever it was in his power he would
endeavour to ameliorate the condition of that class, Sir James Graham rose
immediately after him, and declared, amidst the cheers of the House, that he did
not before know that Mr. Brotherton’s origin had been so humble, but that it
rendered him more proud than he had ever before been of the House of Commons, to
think that a person risen from that condition should be able to sit side by
side, on equal terms, with the hereditary gentry of the land.
The late Mr. Fox, member for Oldham, was accustomed to introduce his
recollections of past times with the words, “when I was working as a weaver boy
at Norwich;” and there are other members of parliament, still living, whose
origin has been equally humble. Mr. Lindsay, the well-known ship owner, until
recently member for Sunderland, once told the simple story of his life to the
electors of Weymouth, in answer to an attack made upon him by his political
opponents. He had been left an orphan at fourteen, and when he left Glasgow for
Liverpool to push his way in the world, not being able to pay the usual fare,
the captain of the steamer agreed to take his labour in exchange, and the boy
worked his passage by trimming the coals in the coal hole. At Liverpool he
remained for seven weeks before he could obtain employment, during which time he
lived in sheds and fared hardly; until at last he found shelter on board a West
Indiaman. He entered as a boy, and before he was nineteen, by steady good
conduct he had risen to the command of a ship. At twenty-three he retired from
the sea, and settled on shore, after which his progress was rapid “he had
prospered,” he said, “by steady industry, by constant work, and by ever keeping
in view the great principle of doing to others as you would be done by.”
The career of Mr. William Jackson, of Birkenhead, the present member for North
Derbyshire, bears considerable resemblance to that of Mr. Lindsay. His father, a
surgeon at Lancaster, died, leaving a family of eleven children, of whom William
Jackson was the seventh son. The elder boys had been well educated while the
father lived, but at his death the younger members had to shift for themselves.
William, when under twelve years old, was taken from school, and put to hard
work at a ship’s side from six in the morning till nine at night. His master
falling ill, the boy was taken into the counting-house, where he had more
leisure. This gave him an opportunity of reading, and having obtained access to
a set of the ‘Encyclopaedia Britannica,’ he read the volumes through from A to
Z, partly by day, but chiefly at night. He afterwards put himself to a trade,
was diligent, and succeeded in it. Now he has ships sailing on almost every sea,
and holds commercial relations with nearly every country on the globe.
Among like men of the same class may be ranked the late Richard Cobden, whose
start in life was equally humble. The son of a small farmer at Midhurst in
Sussex, he was sent at an early age to London and employed as a boy in a
warehouse in the City. He was diligent, well conducted, and eager for
information. His master, a man of the old school, warned him against too much
reading; but the boy went on in his own course, storing his mind with the wealth
found in books. He was promoted from one position of trust to another—became a
traveller for his house—secured a large connection, and eventually started in
business as a calico printer at Manchester. Taking an interest in public
questions, more especially in popular education, his attention was gradually
drawn to the subject of the Corn Laws, to the repeal of which he may be said to
have devoted his fortune and his life. It may be mentioned as a curious fact
that the first speech he delivered in public was a total failure. But he had
great perseverance, application, and energy; and with persistency and practice,
he became at length one of the most persuasive and effective of public speakers,
extorting the disinterested eulogy of even Sir Robert Peel himself. M. Drouyn de
Lhuys, the French Ambassador, has eloquently said of Mr. Cobden, that he was “a
living proof of what merit, perseverance, and labour can accomplish; one of the
most complete examples of those men who, sprung from the humblest ranks of
society, raise themselves to the highest rank in public estimation by the effect
of their own worth and of their personal services; finally, one of the rarest
examples of the solid qualities inherent in the English character.”
In all these cases, strenuous individual application was the price paid for
distinction; excellence of any sort being invariably placed beyond the reach of
indolence. It is the diligent hand and head alone that maketh rich—in
self-culture, growth in wisdom, and in business. Even when men are born to
wealth and high social position, any solid reputation which they may
individually achieve can only be attained by energetic application; for though
an inheritance of acres may be bequeathed, an inheritance of knowledge and
wisdom cannot. The wealthy man may pay others for doing his work for him, but it
is impossible to get his thinking done for him by another, or to purchase any
kind of self-culture. Indeed, the doctrine that excellence in any pursuit is
only to be achieved by laborious application, holds as true in the case of the
man of wealth as in that of Drew and Gifford, whose only school was a cobbler’s
stall, or Hugh Miller, whose only college was a Cromarty stone quarry.
Riches and ease, it is perfectly clear, are not necessary for man’s highest
culture, else had not the world been so largely indebted in all times to those
who have sprung from the humbler ranks. An easy and luxurious existence does not
train men to effort or encounter with difficulty; nor does it awaken that
consciousness of power which is so necessary for energetic and effective action
in life. Indeed, so far from poverty being a misfortune, it may, by vigorous
self-help, be converted even into a blessing; rousing a man to that struggle
with the world in which, though some may purchase ease by degradation, the
right-minded and true-hearted find strength, confidence, and triumph. Bacon
says, “Men seem neither to understand their riches nor their strength: of the
former they believe greater things than they should; of the latter much less.
Self-reliance and self-denial will teach a man to drink out of his own cistern,
and eat his own sweet bread, and to learn and labour truly to get his living,
and carefully to expend the good things committed to his trust.”
Riches are so great a temptation to ease and self-indulgence, to which men are
by nature prone, that the glory is all the greater of those who, born to ample
fortunes, nevertheless take an active part in the work of their generation—who
“scorn delights and live laborious days.” It is to the honour of the wealthier
ranks in this country that they are not idlers; for they do their fair share of
the work of the state, and usually take more than their fair share of its
dangers. It was a fine thing said of a subaltern officer in the Peninsular
campaigns, observed trudging alone through mud and mire by the side of his
regiment, “There goes 15,000l. a year!” and in our own day, the bleak slopes of
Sebastopol and the burning soil of India have borne witness to the like noble
self-denial and devotion on the part of our gentler classes; many a gallant and
noble fellow, of rank and estate, having risked his life, or lost it, in one or
other of those fields of action, in the service of his country.
Nor have the wealthier classes been undistinguished in the more peaceful
pursuits of philosophy and science. Take, for instance, the great names of
Bacon, the father of modern philosophy, and of Worcester, Boyle, Cavendish,
Talbot, and Rosse, in science. The last named may be regarded as the great
mechanic of the peerage; a man who, if he had not been born a peer, would
probably have taken the highest rank as an inventor. So thorough is his
knowledge of smith-work that he is said to have been pressed on one occasion to
accept the foremanship of a large workshop, by a manufacturer to whom his rank
was unknown. The great Rosse telescope, of his own fabrication, is certainly the
most extraordinary instrument of the kind that has yet been constructed.
But it is principally in the departments of politics and literature that we find
the most energetic labourers amongst our higher classes. Success in these lines
of action, as in all others, can only be achieved through industry, practice,
and study; and the great Minister, or parliamentary leader, must necessarily be
amongst the very hardest of workers. Such was Palmerston; and such are Derby and
Russell, Disraeli and Gladstone. These men have had the benefit of no Ten Hours
Bill, but have often, during the busy season of Parliament, worked “double
shift,” almost day and night. One of the most illustrious of such workers in
modern times was unquestionably the late Sir Robert Peel. He possessed in an
extraordinary degree the power of continuous intellectual labour, nor did he
spare himself. His career, indeed, presented a remarkable example of how much a
man of comparatively moderate powers can accomplish by means of assiduous
application and indefatigable industry. During the forty years that he held a
seat in Parliament, his labours were prodigious. He was a most conscientious
man, and whatever he undertook to do, he did thoroughly. All his speeches bear
evidence of his careful study of everything that had been spoken or written on
the subject under consideration. He was elaborate almost to excess; and spared
no pains to adapt himself to the various capacities of his audience. Withal, he
possessed much practical sagacity, great strength of purpose, and power to
direct the issues of action with steady hand and eye. In one respect he
surpassed most men: his principles broadened and enlarged with time; and age,
instead of contracting, only served to mellow and ripen his nature. To the last
he continued open to the reception of new views, and, though many thought him
cautious to excess, he did not allow himself to fall into that indiscriminating
admiration of the past, which is the palsy of many minds similarly educated, and
renders the old age of many nothing but a pity.
The indefatigable industry of Lord Brougham has become almost proverbial. His
public labours have extended over a period of upwards of sixty years, during
which he has ranged over many fields—of law, literature, politics, and
science,—and achieved distinction in them all. How he contrived it, has been to
many a mystery. Once, when Sir Samuel Romilly was requested to undertake some
new work, he excused himself by saying that he had no time; “but,” he added, “go
with it to that fellow Brougham, he seems to have time for everything.” The
secret of it was, that he never left a minute unemployed; withal he possessed a
constitution of iron. When arrived at an age at which most men would have
retired from the world to enjoy their hard-earned leisure, perhaps to doze away
their time in an easy chair, Lord Brougham commenced and prosecuted a series of
elaborate investigations as to the laws of Light, and he submitted the results
to the most scientific audiences that Paris and London could muster. About the
same time, he was passing through the press his admirable sketches of the ‘Men
of Science and Literature of the Reign of George III.,’ and taking his full
share of the law business and the political discussions in the House of Lords.
Sydney Smith once recommended him to confine himself to only the transaction of
so much business as three strong men could get through. But such was Brougham’s
love of work—long become a habit—that no amount of application seems to have
been too great for him; and such was his love of excellence, that it has been
said of him that if his station in life had been only that of a shoe-black, he
would never have rested satisfied until he had become the best shoe-black in
England.
Another hard-working man of the same class is Sir E. Bulwer Lytton. Few writers
have done more, or achieved higher distinction in various walks—as a novelist,
poet, dramatist, historian, essayist, orator, and politician. He has worked his
way step by step, disdainful of ease, and animated throughout by the ardent
desire to excel. On the score of mere industry, there are few living English
writers who have written so much, and none that have produced so much of high
quality. The industry of Bulwer is entitled to all the greater praise that it
has been entirely self-imposed. To hunt, and shoot, and live at ease,—to
frequent the clubs and enjoy the opera, with the variety of London visiting and
sight-seeing during the “season,” and then off to the country mansion, with its
well-stocked preserves, and its thousand delightful out-door pleasures,—to
travel abroad, to Paris, Vienna, or Rome,—all this is excessively attractive to
a lover of pleasure and a man of fortune, and by no means calculated to make him
voluntarily undertake continuous labour of any kind. Yet these pleasures, all
within his reach, Bulwer must, as compared with men born to similar estate, have
denied himself in assuming the position and pursuing the career of a literary
man. Like Byron, his first effort was poetical (‘Weeds and Wild Flowers’), and a
failure. His second was a novel (‘Falkland’), and it proved a failure too. A man
of weaker nerve would have dropped authorship; but Bulwer had pluck and
perseverance; and he worked on, determined to succeed. He was incessantly
industrious, read extensively, and from failure went courageously onwards to
success. ‘Pelham’ followed ‘Falkland’ within a year, and the remainder of
Bulwer’s literary life, now extending over a period of thirty years, has been a
succession of triumphs.
Mr. Disraeli affords a similar instance of the power of industry and application
in working out an eminent public career. His first achievements were, like
Bulwer’s, in literature; and he reached success only through a succession of
failures. His ‘Wondrous Tale of Alroy’ and ‘Revolutionary Epic’ were laughed at,
and regarded as indications of literary lunacy. But he worked on in other
directions, and his ‘Coningsby,’ ‘Sybil,’ and ‘Tancred,’ proved the sterling
stuff of which he was made. As an orator too, his first appearance in the House
of Commons was a failure. It was spoken of as “more screaming than an Adelphi
farce.” Though composed in a grand and ambitious strain, every sentence was
hailed with “loud laughter.” ‘Hamlet’ played as a comedy were nothing to it. But
he concluded with a sentence which embodied a prophecy. Writhing under the
laughter with which his studied eloquence had been received, he exclaimed, “I
have begun several times many things, and have succeeded in them at last. I
shall sit down now, but the time will come when you will hear me.” The time did
come; and how Disraeli succeeded in at length commanding the attention of the
first assembly of gentlemen in the world, affords a striking illustration of
what energy and determination will do; for Disraeli earned his position by dint
of patient industry. He did not, as many young men do, having once failed,
retire dejected, to mope and whine in a corner, but diligently set himself to
work. He carefully unlearnt his faults, studied the character of his audience,
practised sedulously the art of speech, and industriously filled his mind with
the elements of parliamentary knowledge. He worked patiently for success; and it
came, but slowly: then the House laughed with him, instead of at him. The
recollection of his early failure was effaced, and by general consent he was at
length admitted to be one of the most finished and effective of parliamentary
speakers.
Although much may be accomplished by means of individual industry and energy, as
these and other instances set forth in the following pages serve to illustrate,
it must at the same time be acknowledged that the help which we derive from
others in the journey of life is of very great importance. The poet Wordsworth
has well said that “these two things, contradictory though they may seem, must
go together—manly dependence and manly independence, manly reliance and manly
self-reliance.” From infancy to old age, all are more or less indebted to others
for nurture and culture; and the best and strongest are usually found the
readiest to acknowledge such help. Take, for example, the career of the late
Alexis de Tocqueville, a man doubly well-born, for his father was a
distinguished peer of France, and his mother a grand-daughter of Malesherbes.
Through powerful family influence, he was appointed Judge Auditor at Versailles
when only twenty-one; but probably feeling that he had not fairly won the
position by merit, he determined to give it up and owe his future advancement in
life to himself alone. “A foolish resolution,” some will say; but De Tocqueville
bravely acted it out. He resigned his appointment, and made arrangements to
leave France for the purpose of travelling through the United States, the
results of which were published in his great book on ‘Democracy in America.’ His
friend and travelling companion, Gustave de Beaumont, has described his
indefatigable industry during this journey. “His nature,” he says, “was wholly
averse to idleness, and whether he was travelling or resting, his mind was
always at work. . . . With Alexis, the most agreeable conversation was that
which was the most useful. The worst day was the lost day, or the day ill spent;
the least loss of time annoyed him.” Tocqueville himself wrote to a
friend—“There is no time of life at which one can wholly cease from action, for
effort without one’s self, and still more effort within, is equally necessary,
if not more so, when we grow old, as it is in youth. I compare man in this world
to a traveller journeying without ceasing towards a colder and colder region;
the higher he goes, the faster he ought to walk. The great malady of the soul is
cold. And in resisting this formidable evil, one needs not only to be sustained
by the action of a mind employed, but also by contact with one’s fellows in the
business of life.” (3)
Notwithstanding de Tocqueville’s decided views as to the necessity of exercising
individual energy and self-dependence, no one could be more ready than he was to
recognise the value of that help and support for which all men are indebted to
others in a greater or less degree. Thus, he often acknowledged, with gratitude,
his obligations to his friends De Kergorlay and Stofells,—to the former for
intellectual assistance, and to the latter for moral support and sympathy. To De
Kergorlay he wrote—“Thine is the only soul in which I have confidence, and whose
influence exercises a genuine effect upon my own. Many others have influence
upon the details of my actions, but no one has so much influence as thou on the
origination of fundamental ideas, and of those principles which are the rule of
conduct.” De Tocqueville was not less ready to confess the great obligations
which he owed to his wife, Marie, for the preservation of that temper and frame
of mind which enabled him to prosecute his studies with success. He believed
that a noble-minded woman insensibly elevated the character of her husband,
while one of a grovelling nature as certainly tended to degrade it.
(4)
(1) In fine, human character is moulded by a thousand subtle
influences; by example and precept; by life and literature; by friends and
neighbours; by the world we live in as well as by the spirits of our
forefathers, whose legacy of good words and deeds we inherit. But great,
unquestionably, though these influences are acknowledged to be, it is
nevertheless equally clear that men must necessarily be the active agents of
their own well-being and well-doing; and that, however much the wise and the
good may owe to others, they themselves must in the very nature of things be
their own best helpers.
Napoleon III., ‘Life of Caesar.’
(2) Soult received but little education in his youth, and
learnt next to no geography until he became foreign minister of France, when the
study of this branch of knowledge is said to have given him the greatest
pleasure.—‘OEuvres, &c., d’Alexis de Tocqueville. Par G. de Beaumont.’ Paris,
1861. I. 52
(3) ‘OEuvres et Correspondance inédite d’Alexis de
Tocqueville. Par Gustave de Beaumont.’ I. 398.
(4) “I have seen,” said he, “a hundred times in the course of
my life, a weak man exhibit genuine public virtue, because supported by a wife
who sustained hint in his course, not so much by advising him to such and such
acts, as by exercising a strengthening influence over the manner in which duty
or even ambition was to be regarded. Much oftener, however, it must be
confessed, have I seen private and domestic life gradually transform a man to
whom nature had given generosity, disinterestedness, and even some capacity for
greatness, into an ambitious, mean-spirited, vulgar, and selfish creature who,
in matters relating to his country, ended by considering them only in so far as
they rendered his own particular condition more comfortable and easy.”—‘OEuvres
de Tocqueville.’ II. 349.
Briggs, Asa (1958) 'Self-Help. A centenary introduction' in Samuel Smiles (1958) Self-Help. The art of achievement illustrated by accounts of the lives of great men. London: John Murray.
Jarvis, Adrian (1997). Samuel Smiles and the Construction of Victorian Values. Thrupp: Sutton Publishing.
Matthew, H. C. G. (2004) ‘Smiles, Samuel (1812–1904)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press; online edn, May 2009 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/36125, accessed 7 July 2009].
Sinnema, Peter (2002) 'Introduction' to Samuel Smiles Self Help. Oxford: University of Oxford Press.
Smiles, Samuel (1857) The Life of George Stephenson, Railway Engineer. London: John Murray.
Smiles, Samuel (1859) Self-Help with Illustrations of Conduct and Perseverance. London: John Murray.
Smiles, Samuel (1861 1862) Lives of the Engineers : with an account of their principal works comprising also A history of inland communication in Britain.3 volumes. London: John Murray.
Smiles, Samuel (1867) The Huguenots: Their Settlements, Churches and Industries in England and Ireland. London: John Murray.
Smiles, Samuel (1871) Character. London: John Murray
Smiles, Samuel (1875) Thrift. London: John Murrary.
Smiles, Samuel (1880), Duty : with illustrations of courage, patience, & endurance. London: John Murray.
Smiles, Samuel (1887) Life and Labour or, characteristics of men of industry, culture and genius. London: John Murray.
Smiles, Samuel (1891) A Publisher and his Friends: Memoir and Correspondence of the Late John Murray. 2 volumes. London: John Murray.
Smiles, Samuel (1894) Josiah Wedgwood F.R.S. His personal history. London: John Murray.
Smiles, Samuel (1905) The Autobiography of Samuel Smiles, LLD, edited by T. Mackay. London: John Murray.
Project Gutenberg - the project includes full texts of a number of works by Samuel Smiles.
This extract has been reproduced here on the understanding that it is not subject to any copyright restrictions, and that it is, and will remain, in the public domain.
First placed in the archives: July 2009.
